During the 1970s, computer techniques were developed and optimized for the automation of patient data acquisition, analysis, storage, and retrieval functions within the NHLBI Surgery Branch's Postoperative Intensive Care Unit. The realtime computer system provided beat-to-beat analysis of physiologic waveforms in an effort to detect life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias. The Surgery Branch, NHLBI, relocated in mid-1981 to its new quarters that were designed, with CSL assistance, to include all facilities necessary to allow the future implementation of an online computer system for physiologic monitoring purposes. It has not as yet been determined whether a commercially available patient data logging system will be installed within the new intensive care unit, and to what extent CSL-designed modifications would be incorporated to provide beat-to-beat monitoring tailored to the Surgery Branch's requirements.